Basic Income and Social Europe

Summary

Before I turn to my assigned topic, let me say that I have great sympathy for the Basic Income European Network that presented itself so impressively at its Seventh Congress in Amsterdam. However, being an empirically oriented political scientist, rather than a moral philosopher, I should also confess that I am doubtful of the political viability of the proposed right to a basic income without means-testing and without a concomitant obligation to do work that is useful to, and appreciated by, other members of one's society. In political discourses, it will not be enough to persuade potential recipients of the desirability of ‘a right to be lazy’, but it will also be necessary to make others believe that they have a moral duty to work harder or longer in order to pay for this program. Personally, moreover, I consider mass unemployment, forced inactivity, and the exclusion from the processes of social production, a much greater challenge to the moral integrity of Western European societies than the frustration of leisure preferences.

For these reasons, I would accord normative priority to variants of basic income schemes that have the explicit purpose of increasing the incentives and the opportunities for gainful employment, rather than for financially secured inactivity. This implies that quite apart from any questions of financial feasibility, I would prefer the negative income tax over proposals for an unconditional basic income, and I would prefer both over presently existing forms of means-tested social assistance with their strong work disincentives. Moreover, if for political, institutional, or financial reasons the negative income tax should not be a feasible option, I would much rather see social insurance contributions for low-wage jobs being reduced than an attempt to increase the generosity of social assistance in its present forms (Scharpf, 1999b). But all this is by way of background information since I have not been asked to discuss my comparative evaluation of basic income proposals. My assigned theme, as I understand it, is to discuss the implications of European integration on the chances of success of basic income proposals in general, regardless of the differences among its several variants.

Economic Integration Constrains National Welfare States

The connection between European integration and basic income proposals is not obvious. So far, at any rate, there appears to be wide agreement that social policy choices should remain a national prerogative under the ‘principle of subsidiarity’.